Free Recovery by Troy Denning Page A

Leia felt confident the
Falcon
would remain hidden. The asteroid they sat upon was only a few times larger than the ship itself, but Han had set them down beside a ten-meter pressure ridge where standard sensors would find it impossible to distinguish the ship’s silhouette.
    The hissing faded away, and another minute passed. The tactical display went briefly blank as the asteroid’s rotation hid the two ships from view, then it turned to static as the sensors pointed toward the tiny sun. When the static cleared, the
Roamer
and the Yuuzhan Vong corvette were separate blips again.
    Tesar hissed in frustration. “They will get—”
    He was interrupted by the shriek of proximity alarms. A new handful of blips appeared on the display, streaking in from five sides, already firing laser bolts and even a couple of long-range proton torpedoes. The Yuuzhan Vong turned to meet the assault, as Yuuzhan Vong ships nearly always did. The
Roamer
ran in the only direction left to it, toward the
Falcon
.
    Han and Izal began a warm start-up, while Leia occupied herself trying to guess whether they would intercept the freighter before it jumped to hyperspace. Identifiers began to appear beneath the blips on the tactical display, revealing a motley assortment of old T-65 X-wings, even older Y-wings, and a pair of Skipray blastboats. Some of the newcomers’ transponder codes were already blinking to show damage, and the Yuuzhan Vong had not even fired.
    â€œThat’s the saddest pirate band I’ve seen in some time,” Leia said. “Who did Master Saba hire for this assignment?”
    â€œNo one. That is our squadron, the Wild Knightz.” Tesar smiled proudly. “I fly a very fine Y-wing.”
    Any need to apologize was forestalled by a proximity alarm. Another vessel, this one a fast-freight tagged the
Jolly Man
, emerged from hyperspace to block the
Roamer
’s line of escape. The CorDuro ship continued on course and began to fire, lacing the darkness outside with tiny needles of light. A trio of ancient Z-95 Headhunters dropped out of the
Jolly Man
’s belly and moved to meet it. The
Roamer
started to turn away—then suddenly changed its mind and ran toward the tiny sun.
    â€œHe’s going down the gravity well! On a white dwarf!” Han engaged the ion drives—still a little cold—and launched the
Falcon
. “He must be crazy.”
    â€œNo,” Tesar said. “He is frightened.”
    The reason grew apparent an instant later, when a blip in hot pursuit emerged from behind an asteroid. A tag naming the vessel the
Sureshot
appeared, along with a legend identifying it as a CEC YT-1300 stock light freighter—the same ship as the
Falcon
.
    â€œShe’s not as fast as the
Falcon
,” Izal Waz said proudly. “But . . . well, she still flies.”
    The
Roamer
quickly started to pull away from the
Sureshot
, but its abrupt change of direction had given the
Jolly Man
’s Headhunters time to catch up. They took a few passes, taking out the energy shields and forcing the captain to waste time maneuvering or have a hole burned through his bridge. Finally, the
Sureshot
activated its tractor beam and caught hold of the target.
    The
Roamer
stopped maneuvering and continued to accelerate, firing at the
Sureshot
and dragging the smaller freighter after it. The Headhunters took care of the cannon fire in two passes, but they could not target the drive nacelles without getting caught in the tractor beam. The
Sureshot
turned ninety degrees in an attempt to change vector, but the course did not vary noticeably. Its engines could not match the combination of the larger freighter’s power and the white dwarf’s gravity.
    â€œSmart,” Leia said. “He’s giving the
Sureshot
a choice—release or be dragged into the sun.”
    â€œTesar,” Han said, “how long before they reach the point of no return?”
    Tesar had already done the